


Since I left you

by valadilenne



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:46:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valadilenne/pseuds/valadilenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy and Joan talk. Spoilers for all of season 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Since I left you

_I tried, but I just can't get you  
Ever since the day I left you_

"Extra Kings," The Avalanches

 

Joan is the first to break the hug, and slides into the other half of the booth with a practiced grace that Peggy feels will always elude her, even in a brand new suit and heels. 

“Just tea,” she says to the waitress with her usual sibilant airiness, and then Joan turns her neck and chin to look upon Peggy, who gestures with both hands to her lunch plate awkwardly. 

“I wasn’t expecting to see anyone here,” she says, and Joan smiles so prettily that her eyelids don’t crease one bit. They never do.

“How is the new job? You must be excited,” and this is with a pointed glance over the collar and lapels. She’s already calculated where it came from, how much it cost, amused that little Peggy Olson ran out and bought a new wardrobe to celebrate her salary and title, but this isn’t that anymore, and Peggy pushes the thought aside. She doesn’t care. She _is_ excited.

“It’s great,” says Peggy, “I have my own office, a group of copywriters under me. I get to yell at them when they screw up.” Joan looks genuinely impressed on her behalf. 

“Quite a step up for a Brooklyn girl.” And Joan moves the teabag around the mug.

“Trying to get these new women’s cigarettes,” Peggy replies, and waggles one of the demos between her fingers; blows smoke at the window with pursed lips. They don’t taste any better with deli food; she’s still working on the name. 

“Well, congratulations,” says Joan, her voice a delicate spun sugar, but there’s confirmation, validation. Peggy is relieved; Joan sips her tea. When she sets it back down, there’s no lipstick mark, and Peggy wonders how to do things like that. There’s already a thick pink ring to match the slender gold band between her fingers. She sucks her tongue over her front teeth slowly and vaguely wonders what Stan and Ginsberg must be up to. 

“How are you doing?”

Joan breathes in, glances out the window and back. It’s almost a shrug.

“Fine.”

“I never got to congratulate _you_ —Don said something about partner when I left. That’s exciting.”

Joan just nods.

“I was sorry to hear about Lane,” Peggy finally murmurs, and Joan keeps nodding smaller and smaller with each bob of her head like she’s an asymptote, staring right through the pile of pastrami Peggy had been pushing around before she walked in.

“Yes,” Joan’s voice says, “It’s—” But she trails off, the mug obscuring her face for a moment.

“So—”

“It’s a transition.” Joan, ever the pragmatist, and Peggy bites her tongue over the word _terrible_. “I’ve taken over the books, and Mr. Cooper has been kind enough to assist me in what I don’t already know.” 

“Of course. I’m sure you’ll do very well, you must have… learned so much.” She watches Joan open a pack of Pall Malls, slicks her own lighter off the table and holds up the flame. First drag, and Joan’s jaw goes firm and still. She can’t picture Joan smoking a… whatever these things are going to be called. 

Maybe their professional relationship was what she had with Don, but the only time Peggy has— _had_ ever heard Joan and Lane argue, it was Joan doing most of the shouting. And throwing. On that note, she tries to remember how much cash she has for this mediocre sandwich plate after going shopping.

“I didn’t know him very well,” she says, “But… he was always nice.” She’d heard everyone complain about him for being tightfisted, but he’d always called her _Miss Olson_ and made pleasant small talk about the weekend.

The redhead looks her over, a slight crease between her eyebrows, and then she replies,

“He was.” Peggy watches Joan push her empty cup aside. “He was very nice.” 

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be missed.” It’s not an elegant close, and she’s already trying to come up with the appropriate goodbye, an elegant way to end this surprise talk and the ugliness of soggy half-eaten pastrami on rye, but Joan looks at her across the deli booth, long and strange, and Peggy forgets her crappy lunch. 

“I guess.”

“Are they not going to have a memorial? I didn’t know if I’d still get an invitation, and I looked in the paper—”

“We offered, but his wife refused.” Joan’s voice is even, but her opinion on this matter is plain from the way the soft cleft in her chin is showing. “Who wouldn’t want to have a service, even a lunch, just to remember him?” She’s wearing a new silver bracelet, and it clacks against the table when she gestures in disbelief. “He was a _founding partner_.”

“You’re really broken up about this.” It comes out faster than she can think, quiet, but still too direct. Of course she is. Joan goes to take another drag, but her mouth hangs open and she shakes her head. 

“You know how they announced it? A _memo_.”

Peggy tries to imagine what it looks like and who wrote it; a goodbye for someone who seemed to do nothing _but_ write memos.

“I just wish I could understand.”

“You can’t beat yourself up over it,” Peggy says in firm reassurance, “Especially when it’s unexpected, a heart attack—”

Joan gives Peggy one of those stares where her eyelashes come up slowly, and Peggy is supposed to divine from this some coded message, and it’s not really obvious where Joan is going with it, and now of course she’s taking so long to figure it out that Joan is getting impatient and about to roll her eyes over just how _dumb_ she is when Peggy mouths the words _oh my god_ very small.

“What happened?” Joan flicks her cigarette and sparks fly down into the ash tray. “I won’t say anything,” says Peggy automatically. The redhead barely leans forward, some expensive perfume with a French name encircling her throat, and speaks so quietly that Peggy has to read her lips, and then she pulls on the cigarette without changing expression. The younger woman puts a hand over her mouth. 

 _Suicide is contrary to love for the living God_ , says the Catechism immediately inside Peggy’s head, but there’s just a cold shot of shock, and then pity. 

She remembers sitting in the creative lounge with her feet up one Friday afternoon, and catching in the hall a glimpse of Lane and Joan striding in time with each other despite Joan’s distinctive sway, Lane chuckling and Joan’s eyes sweeping sidelong over him, her grin materializing just as they disappeared. Stan looked up, made an ‘O’ with one hand and thrust his pen in and out of it with the other. 

“Steed and Peel,” muttered Ginsberg, not looking up from his notepad.

“ _They’re gonna fuck_ ,” whispered Stan gleefully, as if it were going to be him and Joan, and she lobbed her editing pencil at his head. “I bet she keeps her heels on.” He ducked, and the empty cup from her thermos hit the wall. “Ohh, _Mister Pryce_ ,” he moaned brokenly in a high, breathy voice, squeezing his chest forward and out. Peggy dove for an eraser before Rizzo could swipe it away, hoping the pair outside had already met the elevator.

Joan lights another cigarette, and Peggy is not entirely sure, but thinks she looks dulled. There’s no redness in her eyes, just… contemplative quietude, or the appearance of it. Joan is good at that—Joan is _the best_ at that. And she thinks about all the times they watched her knock and disappear into that office. At the very least, she must miss the routine. Predictability and order in all things. They must have been alike like that. 

She breathes in and watches those prim shoulders buffer.


End file.
